“For Farnsworth, things were not going so well. Broadcasting a clear image of a line was one thing, developing it into a fully fledged entertainment system was quite another. Even a fairly basic set-up would require millions of dollars of investment, which Farnsworth clearly didn’t have. Learning of his progress, Zworykin paid him a visit. Farnsworth, thinking RCA wished to license his patents, happily showed Zworykin everything, including how to make an image dissector, the apparatus at the very heart of his system. Thanks to this help, RCA now quickly developed an image dissector of its own. Sarnoff airily informed Farnsworth that RCA didn’t actually want or need his patents – this was a lie – but that it was generously prepared to offer him $100,000 for everything: patents, diagrams, working models and all the contents of his lab. Farnsworth dismissed the offer as the insult that it was.”

Фило Фарнсуорт и Владимир Зворыкин

RCA waged a battle against Farnsworth. It maintained that Farnsworth could not have conceived of electronic television in 1922 on the grounds that a fifteen-year-old schoolboy could hardly have come up with an idea that had eluded the most brilliant minds of science and technology for years. Luckily for Farnsworth, his old chemistry teacher, Justin Tolman, was able to produce his original sketch. That, and the fact that Farnsworth possessed the relevant patents, left the court in no doubt. In 1935, it ruled that Farnsworth was ‘the undisputed inventor of television’ – a stunning victory for the lone inventor.RCA essentially ignored the ruling. At the 1939 New York World’s Fair it demonstrated a working television that was entirely dependent on Farnsworth patents, for which it had neither made payment nor secured permission.”

In 1950, Sarnoff secured a promise from the Radio and Television Manufacturers Association of America that it would refer to him henceforth as ‘the Father of Television’ and to Vladimir Zworykin as ‘the Inventor of Television’. Farnsworth was effectively expunged from the record.

Давид Сарнов

Vladimir Zworykin survived Sarnoff and Farnsworth by eleven years, dying in 1982 the day before his ninety-third birthday. In an interview in 1974, he claimed never to watch television because it was so mindless, and said that his greatest contribution to television technology was the invention of the off switch. In fact, the off switch was invented by Philo Farnsworth and was part of his earliest patent.”